Pages

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

The Hilfiker parcel is part of a long undeveloped strip
between Albert Drive and Boone Road in South Salem

The City is kicking off the formal Planning Process for the future Hilfiker Park on Thursday the 2nd. There will be an Open House at Painters Hall in Pringle Creek Community from 6:30pm to 8:00pm.

Apart from the recreational things and amenities we deploy inside the park, it occupies a key potential east-west connection, and making sure the path system works for walking and biking, including during the early dark in Winter, will be an important part of the park's design.

Certainly, for walking it's an unambiguously terrific idea, and deserves full support.

But conceived as a set of bike routes, at present it is impossible, it it is likely to remain problematic.

This will be criticism of detail, not criticism of the "big picture" concept, please note! It's just that currently you can walk this route, but you can't really bike it, and significant, big interventions will be necessary for it to be a meaningful and useful bike route.

This new concept is focused more on walking, and it may be that instead of trying to brand it for "Pedestrian and Bike," it should just be for walking, a walking map and set of walking routes. That's valuable by itself.

Saturday, October 28, 2017

On a post the other day about induced demand on a City Council FB discussion group, a commenter dropped a flurry of links critical of "the myth of induced demand." Mostly they were not very useful, alas.

But one of them was a little more interesting. (Though in a narrow way. This will be more like an extended footnote, and may be more boring than usual!) A post at a Libertarian think tank, "Debunking the Induced-Demand Myth" is worth a closer reading.

It is written by someone generally critical of bikes and transit, who is all about cars, car, and more cars. So that set of prior commitments is a bit of a flag. Still, the piece appeared to represent a serious pass at criticism of induced demand.

In the end, it was hampered by its implied audience: It did not seem to be written to persuade people who advocate for the reality of induced demand, but instead seemed to be written to reassure people who already know induced demand is a myth. It was more preaching to the choir than even-handed assessment, and therefore did not fully engage the argument for induced demand. So it was not persuasive.

Common Ground

But first, instead of immediately trying to debunk the debunker, let's consider common ground. The conclusion, actually, is consistent what what we argue here:

If congestion is the issue, then...the solution is congestion pricing....That’s why I support, not new road construction, but better road pricing.

Libertarian-conservatives should support decongestion pricing. There should totally be a "green tea," left-right, whatever you want to call it, coalition in favor of better pricing for road use. Congestion and pollution arise from a market failure because we overuse and misallocate a "free" good, unpriced access to roads. Though we all might have different ends in mind, at the moment there should be broad agreement just now about means, about instituting better pricing and creating a better functioning market for access to road space.*("Decongestion pricing" seems like a better term because the goal of the pricing is decongestion.)

The piece is in response to a Wired Magazine piece, and most of that criticism we can ignore. The Wired journalist simplified and it not helpful to point out the ways that journalist misunderstood or misrepresented things. That's a straw man. For our purposes, the important part of the piece is rather a critique of the prior work on which the article draws, the foundational paper, "The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion."

Though it is almost certainly not the most important element of the proposal, the most interesting detail that came out of a quick scan was the most frequent route on the Sunday proposal.

Most Sunday service would be hourly - except Lancaster

The proposed Sunday routes map pretty closely to the "core network" they identified earlier this summer, and on it they propose hourly service. The lone exception is the cross-town route 11 on the Lancaster corridor, for which they propose 30-minute service.

Monday, October 23, 2017

Our Metropolitan Planning Organization meets on Tuesday the 24th, and they will discuss several items of interest.

Biking and walking to school coverage, 2013
Brown Road at top without sidewalks

One is a resolution calling for the State to increase total funding for Safe Routes to School Education funding. HB 2017, you may recall, boosted Safe Routes infrastructure funding, but it did not address staffing and programming. The programming side funds Action Plans, which are necessary in order to write applications for infrastructure projects in the first place. Then to use the new sidewalks and bike lanes most effectively, kids need safety education and adults might need to organize walking school buses or bike trains. The staffing piece for a local coordinator helps to fund all this. ODOT is already recommending an increase, and SKATS proposes to support it.

Resolution to Support more Safe Routes funding

2021-2024 STIP - The Balance Between Fix-it and Enhance

The context for this is discussion about the shape of the 2021-2024 statewide transportation funding plan.

ODOT's Current Proposal for funding

And basically the same thing in a pie chart

You can see the proposal for SR2S education going from $500,000 to $1M per year. So, again, the resolution at SKATS calls for supporting ODOT's current proposal.

(Note also the elimination of "bus replacements" in the table and chart. I assume this is because HB 2017 included a separate transit funding component, so even though the column subtotal declines from $60M to $51M, it is not actually a cut in funding for walk/bike/bus. At least that's how I read it.)

Sunday, October 22, 2017

Amtrak is making an important change to the Cascades schedule, and there's a meeting tomorrow, Monday the 23rd, to present more on it.

From ODOT/Amtrak:

The state of Washington is adding two new round trips on the Amtrak Cascades train route between Portland and Seattle, and these additions are prompting schedule updates that will allow Oregon trains to meet the new arrivals and departures. Part of this change means the Monday – Friday morning southbound train from Portland will now leave at 9:45 a.m. instead of 6:00 a.m....

The 6:00 a.m. train departure will move to a 9:45 a.m. departure to line up with Washington trains (Mon-Fri); Sat-Sun-Holidays will change from 9:35 a.m. departure to 12:30 p.m. departure. [italics added]

Commuters who have been using the morning Portland to Salem trip, will have to change. No word on whether a bus will replace that service or whether those who rely on that trip are SOL.

Apparently the regular count of morning passengers from Portland south
is paltry compared to the demand for Portland-Seattle connections.

A northbound trip from Eugene is also affected, though to a much lesser degree:

The 4 p.m. train departure will move to a 4:30 p.m. departure to line up with Washington trains (all days).

These changes will be effective on December 18th of this year.

The informational meeting runs from 6:30pm to 7:30pm on Monday the 23rd at the Salem Depot. (Which seems a little odd, as people who use the service will have been on the northbound train, departing a little after 5pm!)

Baggage Depot is getting close! (earlier this month)

If you go, while you're at it you can check out progress on the Baggage Depot, which is coming along, and the end is in sight!

Here's a very old plan of Salem from 1848 - in "Champoeg County"! - that doesn't seem to have been reproduced very much. It was tweeted out without caption, and a quick google didn't turn up anything about it. Though the City "salemhistory.net" site is down just now, they have in the past reproduced a sketch from 1850 of William Willson's 1845 plat (itself copied from a 1929 news article). At least as far as online sources go, this gets us closer to the "original" concept! There might be more to say later on it.

You might recall some preliminary talk a while back about downtown "opportunity sites." This is one of them. A year ago (at Council, and in more detail at DAB) the City made no moves, and the UGM site was identified as a "medium-term" prospect. The calendar seems to have moved up. At the same time, there are still many moving parts:

Due to concerns regarding timing of the property transfer, the sellers’ concerns regarding flexibility, interest from third parties, and the due diligence involved, staff and the sellers’ broker determined an option agreement was the most prudent means to place the property under contract.

Thursday, October 19, 2017

The most stubborn fact in our current moment of debate over the Salem River Crossing, and the one that makes it most difficult for those of us who think the SRC would be more harmful than helpful, is that traffic is up by a considerable bit in the last two or three years.

In the decade of the 2000s, extending to about 2013, traffic flattened and it was easier to make an argument against the bridge based on demand. Demand was flat, there were at the time reasons to think about structural changes in miles traveled and trips taken, changes that are now more difficult to assert, and so it was possible to make a credible argument that based on demand "we don't need it." We don't need to add to road supply to relieve congestion and accommodate drive-alone trip demand.

There was a real opportunity to focus on the demand side of things.

Bridge traffic, 1993 - 2016

But now, based more on the subjective and unpleasant experience of being stuck in traffic, with this increase in bridge crossings, with a change in demand, people increasingly find "we don't need it" an incredible claim, not very plausible at all. Now the focus is on the supply side of things. (There is in fact a whole facebook group devoted to congestion - indeed, almost perversely celebrating congestion - as if that by itself constituted proof we need a new bridge and highway.)

So does this nullify this part of an argument against this SRC or does it merely require that opponents of the SRC adjust and refine their arguments?

Separately, on the State Street Study, the current preferred alternative is a half-and-half beast, half road diet, half status quo. It arrived at that solution in no small part because the dominant question to be answered was, What will be the future car traffic demand and how can we accommodate it while maintaining level of service? How do we need to adjust road space supply to meet demand?

Inflexible Demand, Flexible Supply?

On both the SRC and on State Street, the dominant analytic mode has been concerned with satisfying some future projection of demand for driving trips. We propose to add road supply - expensive road supply! - to satisfy future demand.

We treat demand and rising traffic counts like the tide, like an inexorable force
rising upward or outward, something that must be relieved or drained.
It's another expression of hydraulic autoism.

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

The Historic Landmarks Commission meets on Thursday the 19th, and they'll be deliberating on a proposal to replace and/or restore historic fencing on "Diamond Square" in the heart of Jason Lee Cemetery ("Lee Mission Cemetery" to be exact) on D Street.

Jason Lee, Memorial Day 2014

Diamond Square is a plot in which Jason Lee himself and other important early figures are buried. It really is the core
and center.

1852 General Land Office survey map, Salem area.
Parrish home, the cemetery, the Methodist church
and Willamette U sites highlighted

Methodist Missionary Josiah L. Parrish, for whom the school is named,
set aside the land from his Donation Land Claim. It predates the asylum by a good bit, and belongs in the orbit of our pre-statehood history. Pioneer Cemetery gets most of the attention in town, and Lee Cemetery deserves more love. (On the map you can also see David Leslie's home site, which Asahel Bush purchased in 1860.)

Monday, October 16, 2017

After months of seeming quiet, the West Salem Business District planning process has published a proposal for re-zoning for the most close-in parts of the flats on and around Edgewater.

The West Salem Zone Code Clean-up intends to streamline zoning regulations in certain areas along Edgewater Street NW, 2nd Street NW, and Wallace Road NW by removing overlay zones and creating single zones that contain more flexibility for commercial and mixed-use development. The project seeks to implement the recommendations from the West Salem Business District Action Plan, consistent with earlier studies of the area.

The proposed "Craft Industrial" corridor and extension of the existing "Edgewater/2nd Street Mixed-use" corridor look relatively straight-forward. Maybe you will see something worth more comment. From here the most interesting part seemed to be the "Central Business District" concept.

Sunday, October 15, 2017

One of the claims here is that making distracted driving our primary safety focus is a kind of error.

It attacks a secondary problem or phenomenon or factor rather than the primary one. It's not an error in the sense of something false, but is an error in the sense of something misguided or inefficient.

The new cellphone law

Behind that focus on distraction is an analytical preference for rate statistics rather than counting statistics, it seems to me.

When we focus mainly on distracted driving, we say we will keep the rate and amount of driving more or less the same, and we are going to try to squeeze out incremental improvements in our rates of safer driving. It's really a kind of qualitative improvement: We're going to try to drive better.

In and of itself that is not an error of course. We should always try better! Distracted driving is a problem, and we should want to make inroads on that.

But that may not be the best approach to have as the primary focus.

A different approach would be to say that humans are fallible creatures and that since driving a vehicle weighing thousands of pounds at lethal speeds is inherently dangerous, it is more prudent and more effective to drive less distance, drive less often, and drive more slowly. Even if our rate of crashes remains the same, because we are driving fewer miles and making fewer trips and driving more slowly there will be fewer crashes and fewer deaths. This is mostly a quantitative argument.

Because at the end of the day, at the end of the month, at the end of the year, it is the number of dead people that matter. It's the count that matters. It's mourning 17 dead instead of 24. It's binary: dead, not-dead.

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Broadly speaking it disappoints and fails to express a thorough 21st century rethink on the corridor.

Incoherence and timidity is very clear in the brochure.

A chapter heading image shows a road diet

In a bit of a bait-and-switch they show a road diet on one of the images at the head of a "chapter."

Since the recommendation is not for a road diet (except the four blocks between 13th and 17th), a more representative image would have been a photo version of the four through-lane section, which is the majority of the corridor. It would be stroady, of course, and almost certainly not show a vibrant urban streetscape, but that's where the recommendation goes.

In the brochure they also discuss "Elements of Strong Street Design," at least implicitly pointing to the disjunction.

The elements of strong street design

The recommended "hybrid alternative" lacks many elements of a strong street design. (They could point this out more strongly, of course.)

The hybrid recommendation lacks
elements of strong street design

Our addiction to hydraulic autoism and a misguided attachment to "levels of service" analysis for 2035 has watered down and neutered the plan.

Friday, October 6, 2017

Council meets on Monday and while garbage rates will probably get most of the attention, two sets of transportation funding applications are also worth notice.

After some real uncertainty, the Feds just reauthorized the TIGER program for another round of funding. Salem has been planning on an application for a large project, so this is good news.

The Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program

stems from the program
funded and implemented pursuant to
the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the
‘‘Recovery Act’’) known as the
Transportation Investment Generating
Economic Recovery, or ‘‘TIGER
Discretionary Grants,’’ program. Because
of the program’s similarity in structure
and widespread name recognition, DOT
will continue to refer to the program as "TIGER Discretionary Grants' "....

The FY 2017 TIGER program
will give special consideration to
projects which emphasize improved
access to reliable, safe, and affordable
transportation for communities in rural
areas, such as projects that improve
infrastructure condition, address public
health and safety, promote regional
connectivity, or facilitate economic
growth or competitiveness. For this
round of TIGER Discretionary Grants,
the maximum grant award is $25
million, and no more than $50 million
can be awarded to a single State....

This
includes, but is not limited to, capital
projects in areas which repair bridges or
improve infrastructure to a state of good
repair; projects that implement safety
improvements to reduce fatalities and
serious injuries, including improving
grade crossings or providing shorter or
more direct access to critical health
services; projects that connect
communities and people to jobs,
services, and education; and, projects
that anchor economic revitalization and job growth in communities, and
specifically those that help bring
manufacturing and other jobs.

Salem wants to use one for a complete redesign and rebuild of McGilchrist between 12th and 25th. Earlier I had been thinking the McGilchrist project might not be so competitive. Previous awards had seemed to go to projects that were more innovative, sustainable, and multi-modal. Even though the McGilchrist project would come with bike lanes and sidewalks, it seemed to represent a standard 1980s-style "urban upgrade," and did not meet the standard for innovation in the 21st century.

With the final criteria published, and less stress it seems on innovation, the McGilchrist project appears to hit the marks solidly and prospects seem good for it to score highly:

Safety improvements for people on foot, by bike, or by bus

Improving the at-grade rail crossing

Improving access to critical health services, especially the Veterans and Social Security offices

Connecting to jobs and services, with a lot of industry and manufacturing

And now there's the nascent brewery sector.

McGilchrist at the SSA Office:
40mph, no sidewalks - but watch out for pedestrians!

So it no longer seems fanciful to think that Salem would secure a grant. It's a $23 million project, with lot of drainage and stormwater extra requirements. (But with a $50 million cap per state, it'll be interesting to learn of other Oregon applications.)

The Liberty Street NE Bridge over Mill Creek was built in 1913 and has the worst sufficiency rating on the Salem eligibility list due to structural deficiencies. This bridge is located just north of the new police facility site and is weight restricted for large trucks due to the structural deficiencies.

The Airport Road SE Bridge over Shelton Ditch was constructed in 1954 and has scour deficiencies that have exposed the bridge footings and abutments. In addition, this bridge is too narrow for the existing minor arterial street classification as it lacks sidewalks and bike lanes. This bridge has the third worst sufficiency rating on the Salem eligibility list.

(Interestingly ODOT's "Oregon's Historic Bridge Field Guide" from 2013 does not list the Liberty St Bridge. Is it really that old? See here for more on that.)

Other bridges that score higher on the sufficiency rating, for which the City is not at the moment making application for funding, but which yet remain vulnerable to earthquake are:

High Street SE over Pringle Creek

Mission Street SE over Pringle Creek

Chemeketa Street NE over Mill Creek

State Street over Mill Creek

13th Street SE over Shelton Ditch

Even if by "regular" standards they merely have a few deficiencies, they still need seismic retrofits and we will need to factor these into our disaster prep and future maintenance/replacement obligations if only for seismic alone.

Located downtown in the beautiful, tree filled lot between Willamette Valley Bank and Ritter's.

Made possible with the support of the Salem Main Street Association, The Kitchen on Court St., The Bike Peddler, Salem Summit Company, The Governor's Cup Coffee Roasters, Sky Window Clean and Huggin's Insurance we were able to put our dream into a sweet, sweet reality.

But in addition to the pleasures of music and the outdoor festival, give a moment of thought to the "beautiful, tree filled lot."

The Schreiber block of 1902 used to be there. It burned down in 1966, according to the library's photos. It has never been replaced, and now it's a City parking lot. As we think about "main streets," we should also think about filling in the urban voids and the commerce and sidewalk life a continuous row of storefronts creates.

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Demand Management siloed from Public Works
(In Salem, Cherriots does TDM, not the City)

TransitCenter and Alta Planning recently released a report on individual marketing programs. "Measures for Success" is about things like the Connecting Salem "individual marketing" project from a couple of years ago. (Before and after notes).

Present Incoherence in Policy

The specific recommendations for Individual marketing programs themselves are not of general interest here. But the final recommendation is more generally interesting and points to a major problem:

In many places, TDM staff have little interaction with the professionals who manage street design, public transit, and parking policy, even though those departments play an enormous role in travel behavior. This puts TDM professionals in a position where they are charged with increasing use of sustainable transportation even as the broader policy environment makes this difficult (i.e. because transit is being cut, roads are being widened, or abundant free parking is provided). Often, the only funding is grant-based, making it difficult to undertake longer-term or more complex projects.
To truly transform how people move in cities requires different aspects of the system working in concert: policy, planning, engineering, maintenance, monitoring; parking management, zoning and development code, street design, and growth plans; vehicle, freight, transit, shared mobility and active modes. All of these approaches must be aligned to bring about meaningful change. [italics added]

If you are feeling very optimistic, that phrase in italics points to a tension between what we say we're going to do and what we actually fund and execute in our budgets.

If you are feeling more pessimistic, that phrase indicates an outright structural contradiction and total incoherence in our approach to transportation and sustainability.

$10 million in widening for a near-highway interchange

Even though we say we want to "decrease reliance on the SOV," our biggest projects are all about hydraulic autoism and flow. We supply more auto capacity. By a huge margin.

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Last night at the Volunteer Recognition, the City honored bike advocate Angela Obery with this year's Salem Spirit Award:

Angela has been an inspirational leader in the community for several years, coordinating revitalization activities around Broadway area local businesses, the Winter/Maple Family Bikeway, as well as walking and biking education. She provides encouragement and passionate support to all with whom she is involved. The recent Open Streets Salem event is an example of her deeply held belief in community, and her desire to promote a culture of healthy, active living. While the event was sponsored by the City of Salem and several other local partners, Angela played a key role in coordinating the successful event, which attracted hundreds of people.

Her exuberant personality, coupled with her unwavering belief in fostering civic pride by highlighting and engaging Salem’s neighborhoods, have brought many unconventional partners to the table, including businesses, neighborhood associations, and educational representatives together to make creative choices with the belief they can make their community a better place for all. Diverse partnerships are key to Sally, and as a direct result of her efforts, more people are walking and biking in Salem.

Angela’s positive approach has resulted in strengthened community partnerships as well as created more transportation options for the community. Her leadership is inspirational to those of us who know her personally, and because of her strongly held beliefs and commitment, has translated into some pretty impressive and positive environmental impacts. Salem could use some more resident “doers” like her!

City Councilor Sally Cook, Ward 7, presented the award.

Friends of Two Bridges also won an At Your Service Award for their work supporting the Minto Bridge.

Monday, October 2, 2017

Did you see yesterday's front page article on the prospect of rediscovering a shrine or altar in an historic Chinese quarter of the Pioneer Cemetery?

That's really something.

It will be very interesting to see what information and history emerges. How good will the sources be? If there are no extant first-person accounts from actual users, accounts that may not be in English, it will be difficult to say very much about it. Retrieving the history from anglo sources is tricky, or even impossible. At best we will have a dim, second-order approximation; at worst, an anglo fabrication or stereotype.

Here's a discussion of it or something like it filtered through the anglo editorial process. It's not possible to say for sure that this refers to the structure discussed in the paper, but this is likely a similar structure and set of burial rites:

DRIVE AWAY DEVIL WHEN
LEE WAY IS BURIED
Lee Way, Chinese, was buried in Odd
Fellows cemetery yesterday afternoon.
Incense was burned and fireworks displayed, following the usual Chinese custom. Lee died in poverty and a collection was taken to give him the proper
burial. His little effects were placed
in the cemetery furnace and burned, after the burial services.

In addition to the lack of real detail, note also the tone. It is detached amusement about a strange foreigner who does not have to be taken very seriously or with close attention, and who is not regarded as very important.

Apparently knowledge of the shrine was lost for a couple of generations, then "rediscovered" in 1953 and 1963, and lost again. Now another two generations later, there is a third or four round of rediscovery.

Sunday, October 1, 2017

Truly it is nice to see praise for the Minto Bridge. Last week the City announced that

The American Public Works Association (APWA) Oregon Chapter recently selected Salem's Peter Courtney Minto Island Bridge for the 2017 Project of the Year in the Structures Category for $5 - $25 million projects.

It would be interesting to learn more about the competitors this year in the category. On the surface the award looks more like guild back-patting than a real honor against worthy peers. In 2014 it looks like a retaining wall won the award! (The chapter's public records aren't very thorough or organized.) Maybe that's wrong or cynical.

The focus on the announcement, though, seems more to be on the effort to brand the bridge as "iconic" than to advertise the substantive grounds for having won the award.

Icon!

At this point it seems easier to say the bridge is more famous as "taco" than icon. The half-modern dome of the Capitol and its Golden Man are icons. The Minto Bridge? Not yet. Some things are instantly iconic, but others take time to win that status.

Maybe the bridge never will. Another hallmark of the Capitol, like that of many other icons, is that it is visible from other places in town.

The Minto Bridge has limited visibility from points outside of the park system.

Minto Bridge from the Conference Center,
inside on the southwest corner of the second floor.

You may recall that one of the questions about the "flatiron" Park Front building going up on the northwest corner of the Boise parcel was whether its height would interfere with views of the Minto Bridge from the Conference Center.

About Us

The Breakfast Blog is about bicycling and the built environment here in Salem, focusing mostly on transportation but with significant servings of bike fun, land use, planning, and design. And other miscellaneous stuff.
Write: breakfastonbikes [at] gmail [dot] com